It's a game of snatching Bounty Hunter, it seems. He enables a lot of map information and controls enemies' movement by an extreme margin. If Yandex were first pick again, PVision might need to think about banning that Bounty Hunter on the 6th pick — moving that Enigma ban to the 12th, probably. Yandex should have had a great deal of options had they gone with Wyvern on the 8th.

On the numbers: I refer to heroes by the slot they were taken at across the series — "banning on the 6th" means the ban taken at the 6th selection. Which hero shows up at which slot, and how often it's contested, is what Hero × Pick Slot measures.

What are your thoughts?

Faceless Void into Lifestealer and Razor, plus a flex Centaur Warrunner at position 4 — a beauty of a draft from Team Liquid against Team Falcons. Void as an independent carry laned against Razor comfortably, which forced Falcons to adjust with Lifestealer in the offlane. Viper into Razor was still the ideal lane for Liquid. As the mid-to-late game progressed, Falcons couldn't do anything against this Void — a very strong pick from Team Liquid.

Out-tempo-ed match by PVision. Despite BoomBoys' draft being legit, one variable changed it all — tempo. Look at Lone Druid's net worth at the 15-minute mark: BoomBoys couldn't play at all from there.

Nigma built their draft around a flex Necrophos and a Puck tempo core — and Falcons' answer was the Enchantress. Enchant is a soft counter to Necrophos on two fronts: she plays a fast, high-tempo lane that denies Necrophos the early momentum it needs, and her second skill dispels Ghost Shroud. Paired with a Lone Druid / Tiny tower-damage plan, the draft reads 50/50 on paper — the game comes down to tempo.

Nigma opens on the Necrophos

Nigma Galaxy are on the first-pick side. The bans are pretty standard for this meta, and they open with the Necrophos — it could be a carry or the mid, because I doubt Davai played the Necro offlane.

Falcons answered with the flex hero Snapfire, then went to work on the ban phase. Clockwerk was still in the pool and they didn't want to face it in the Doom for Ammar, so it went. They also banned Viper, because Lorenof plays a lot of Viper.

The pick: Enchantress

Falcons answered the Necrophos with the Enchantress, and it's a great pick on two levels.

Gameplay-wise the Enchantress plays a really high, fast tempo and owns the lane — and the Necrophos requires a bit of early momentum. On top of that, her second skill counters Ghost Shroud: Enchant dispels it.

That's a soft counter to the hero Nigma built around.

Nigma's response — flex supports and a Puck

Nigma still want to flex the Necrophos, so they pick two support heroes that can go either lane, off or safe. The Shadow Demon is a really good pick here — it purges against this hero, and against his escape act too.

Then Nigma close the draft with the Puck, the counter to these heroes, mostly a mid at this point. (Even though Malr1ne has played Centaur Warrunner mid — I saw that too, pretty wild — that hasn't shown up at this bracket.)

At this point the draft looks pretty 50/50. It comes down to tempo.

Falcons' finish — Lone Druid into Tiny

The late bans are Drow Ranger, then Nature's Prophet and Windranger, then Templar Assassin. Looking at the lineup, Falcons want tower damage plus an independent, high-damage hero they can play around, so they take the Lone Druid.

That makes the Tiny a very good option for Falcons: low-cooldown spells even in the late game, so he can deal with the bear even after the Aghanim's Scepter — and he's good into the Puck.

How each side executes

The check: the draft is 50/50, so watch the tempo. If Enchantress owns her lane and Falcons deny the Lone Druid its 15–20 minute Aghanim's timing, their soft-counter plan worked. If the Bear is farming Aghs on schedule off early tier-1 towers, Nigma won the tempo battle instead. I'll break down how the match actually played out in the next video.

They drafted well and lost anyway. Boomboys read the map better: Nigma spent four to five heroes on ganks while Boomboys farmed, and the kills never converted into objectives. Below is the pick-by-pick read of both games, and the exact slots where each draft committed to its plan.

On the numbers: Dota's pick/ban runs 24 slots, and I refer to heroes by the slot they were taken at — "16th Viper" means Viper at the 16th selection. Which hero appears at which slot, and how often it wins there, is what Hero × Pick Slot measures.

Game 1

So Nigma had to choose, either risk giving Boomboys Kotl, pick bane themselves, or counter the bane. Conveniently, Davai's hero Lycan is a solution to both Bane and Drow, so they went on banning kotl, and left bane opened.

Although, 16th Viper to control midlane Lina invited the definite Naga Siren pick from Boomboys.

and the 24th Invoker to lane against Axe seems very optimistic.

The team's ability to fight falls heavily on the hoodwink shoulder, which is not very ideal to fight against the Naga siren lineup.

Game 2

There's a good chance Bane might be opened, and Kuro did homework, he proactively ban the Wyvern (their 9th response) at 5th.

Boomboys just responded neutrally, picked their strong heroes. Tiny pick at 15th forces Kez pick, followed by Undying. One might argue, what option one could have picked at 15th?

It depends on which Player/Lane power you want to utilize the most.

Here, it's Davai's Timbersaw, which is understandable, since they qualified TI closed quali with that hero.

Draft looks pretty standard, and it's designed in such a way that Tiny is supposed to be play-making, and follow along supports/smokes to land a sure-instant stun.

It's what happened during the game. Tiny bought early blink. The game was going 50/50. However, Boomboys map usage was way more efficient.

Nigma spent 4 to 5 heroes on ganks while Boomboys were farming, and even if they got the kills, it didn't translate into the objectives.

Nigma did the homework and drafted well. I believe they're gonna resolve the movement thing together as a team before TI.

The check: if they've fixed it, at TI you'll see fewer four- and five-hero gank commitments before the 20-minute mark, and smokes that end on a tower or Roshan rather than on a kill. If that pattern is still there in the group stage, the drafting was never the problem.